Gender in the Community: a Study of the Women and Men of the Taradale Area, 1886-1930

Abstract

'Gender in the Community' is a study of two aspects of Pakeha social history; local community and gender relations. It takes a case study approach, and focuses on the everyday lives of the people of the Taradale area of Hawke's Bay, from 1886 to 1930. Using oral history and written sources, I examine the question of whether or not local community existed in nineteenth century settler society. I reject Miles Fairburn's recent assertion that the nineteenth century was characterised by atomisation, and argue, instead, for a continuity of local community within the area. I also argue that the common ties and social interactions between the people of the area-which made it a local community-were not gender neutral. A relational model of gendered cultures is used to explore the lives of Taradale's children, adolescents and adults. The dense, gender specific networks women and men belonged to are examined, to show how they perpetuated, rather than challenged, the area's gendered cultures. The area's feminine and masculine cultures, the ways they interacted and changed, is the focus of the study. I argue that wider changes in Pakeha society over these settling down years led to different changes within feminine and masculine cultures, and that intra-cultural changes were more important than most historians of separate cultures and gender have recognised. In particular, I argue that life cycle and generational changes within feminine cultures led them to be more dynamic than masculine cultures. Although masculine cultures also underwent changes over these years—most notably with the rise of the family man and masculine domesticity—I argue that the inclusive nature of masculine cultures meant that they retained their power but were more static than feminine cultures.